


Skeletons

by sauntering_down



Category: Free!
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Free! Kink Meme, Gen, Goro's just a delivery boy with a boat and he did not sign up for this, Rin needs a lot of hugs, one tiny mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sauntering_down/pseuds/sauntering_down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What would you have done,” Rin said, so softly that the words nearly disappeared into the low hum of the fan, “a couple of years ago, if someone from the swim club came to you and told you they were being… hurt?”</p><p>Oh, Goro thought.  That uncomfortable twist in his gut erupted into full-blown nausea.  Oh, fuck.  The skin on the back of his neck prickled.  He sat up straight, propped his elbows on the table, and managed to keep his voice calm when he replied, “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific, kid.”  And, as much as he didn’t want to – one misstep and Rin would seal up like a clam – he said, “Define ‘hurt’.”</p><p>Rin swallowed.  His mouth worked for a moment before he could get the next word out.</p><p>“Touched.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> The [prompt](http://iwatobiswimclub.dreamwidth.org/1985.html?thread=1939137#cmt1939137) is kind of long, so I won't copy it here, but the gist of it is one of the kids in the old swim club going to Coach Sasabe and asking what he would have done if they had told him they were being sexually abused. Obviously I chose Rin - his habit of confiding in people he's not too close with lent itself pretty well to the prompt.
> 
> I'm not entirely pleased with this fic, but if I don't post it now I'll spend my entire weekend in Florida just stressing over it, so here you are!

**Hideki (22:39)**

**where the hell are you?**

**Hideki (22:40)**

**we’re seriously about to give up your seat to the cute chick with the nose ring hurry up**

**Goro (22:40)**

**just got home so give me a sec**

**Hideki (22:42)**

**i need a wingman asap**

**Goro (22:43)**

**i’m leaving in a minute quit your bitching  
**

**Hideki (22:46)**

**and don’t take the pizzamobile.  that thing frightens women**

Sasabe Goro shook his head in disgust, clapped his phone shut, and tossed it onto the table.  _‘Don’t take the Pizzamobile’_ , like he had so many other transportation options open to him.  Damn his asshole friends and their cushy nine-to-five jobs and their respectable suits and their pretentious expensive cars.  He wasn’t quite as sure he’d be having the last laugh as he was at age eighteen, when they were all headed off to nice universities and he was dedicating himself to a swimming career which ultimately didn’t pan out, but at least he was the only one of them with a boat… even if it didn’t get much exercise aside from occasionally shuttling teenagers around.  Well, small successes were still successes.  And he _liked_ his job, weird hours, ungrateful customers, and unreliable tips included.  Goro was morally opposed to jobs that required suits.  The rest of his friends could piss off and just be glad he was doing them a favor by coming out after work and helping them find one-night-stands, since he was apparently the only guy in the group who understood ‘wanna see the scars from my motorcycle accident?’ was _not_ a pick-up line.

There’d been a time, he mused, that he would have eagerly joined them, maybe even hooked up with a girl himself just to show those losers how it was done, but he wasn’t feeling it tonight.  Was he getting old already?  He nearly wished he hadn’t agreed to hang out with them and stayed in instead, maybe caught up on the stack of unread fitness magazines gathering dust in the corner, had a couple of beers that didn’t taste like they’d been used to rinse of the underside of a car.  Too late now, though.  On the bright side, his friends were probably the only people he knew who’d be impressed that Marin-chan had actually been _in his house_.

A shrill ringing knocked him out of his head, and he automatically reached for his phone, already composing a profanity-laden response to Hideki’s whining.  Then the noise came again and he realized it was his doorbell, not his phone – which was good for Hideki and his delicate feelings, not so good for Goro.  The only people who came to his door after nine p.m. tended to be disgruntled pizza delivery customers.  He had no clue how they kept getting his home address, but they were invariably the unreasonable, screamy breed of customer who simply could not comprehend that Goro was only responsible for getting their pizza to them in thirty minutes or less, not for what was inside the box, and it wasn’t his fault if their pie was half-pineapple instead of half-sausage.  Groaning, he got to his feet and grabbed the metal baseball bat he kept in the hallway for this exact reason.  He’d never actually had to use it – opening the door with it slung over his shoulder, smiling widely, and informing them that they were best off taking their concerns to the restaurant’s manager typically scared off all but the most irrational complainants.  Those he just called the police on.  Defending his delivery-boy honor was not worth getting slapped with an assault charge.  Goro plastered on his best do-not-make-me-misuse-this-thing grin, propped the bat against his shoulder, opened the door, and launched right into his usual speech.  “Look, I don’t make ‘em, I just – huh.”

His delivery zone didn’t extend out to Samezuka Academy, and, try as he might, Goro couldn’t think of another reason for Matsuoka Rin to be moping around on his doorstep at quarter to eleven.  Why the kid was staring at the baseball bat, however, eyes wide and bloodshot beneath the dull porch light, was a much easier puzzle.  Goro quickly tossed it into the hall behind him, where it hit the floor with a hollow clatter.  “Don’t ask,” he said.

Rin arched an eyebrow.  “Bad time?”

“Nah.  Long story.” Freed from the burden of pretending he was going to bash someone’s head in if they didn’t get off his porch, Goro leaned a hip against the doorframe and scrutinized him.  Last time they’d been within shouting distance was at regionals, and he’d watched Rin crash into rock bottom and hit his zenith in the space of half an hour – and then Goro had gotten dragged off to be yelled at by a red-faced official who didn’t seem to grasp that he had absolutely zero control over whatever stupid disqualifying stunts the Brat Pack decided to pull.  Rin was a lot taller now, even if he was slouching, sunk into himself like he didn’t want to be seen.  He looked… _off_.  The exuberant, exhilarated boy who’d left the tournament was not the same one who stood before him.  “Jeez, you kids all got huge,” Goro sighed, rubbing the nape of his neck.  “What happened to the days when I could grab you by the scruff and chuck you into the pool if you pissed me off… kind of late for you to be all the way out here, isn’t it?”

Rin stiffened, shoved his hands into his pockets.  He wouldn’t meet Goro’s eyes.  Something about the way he was behaving – shifting, unsettled, wary – strongly reminded Goro of a dog he’d known as a kid.  There had been a stray living in an alleyway that he passed each day on his way to school, and he was eight or so on the morning he stopped and tried to pet it.  The rabies shots and his mother’s endless lectures were worse than the bite.  Days later, he stopped again and this time just watched, observing other people who approached the dog and figuring out what he’d done wrong – looming over it, crowding it against the wall, shoving his fingers into its face so it could sniff.  The most successful ones were the people who let the dog come to them, like the girl who sat on the curb for twenty minutes, talking in a low, soothing voice, coaxing the dog close enough to take the piece of sandwich she held out.  Something told Goro that it was a little wrong to be comparing a teenager to a dog, but he had the same realization now that he had back then – he’d made the wrong move and scared Rin off, which was only confirmed when Rin muttered, “Forget it, it’s not important –” and started to turn away.

“Hey.” Before Rin could step off the porch and vanish into the night, Goro reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.  Rin went instantly, unnervingly still.  Concerned by that reaction, having expected him to run nonetheless, Goro let go, relieved when Rin didn’t just start sprinting.  “Just wondering, that’s all.  I didn’t know if you had a curfew or something at that school of yours.”

“Not on Fridays.”  Rin didn’t turn around, but a bit of the tightness in his shoulders dissolved.  “There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Oh.” Once, Goro had been irresponsible and let a distressed twelve-year-old run away in tears, and _that_ turned out real well.  He had no intentions of allowing Rin to escape him again.  For a guy who tried not to get stuck in the past, he’d put himself through a few guilt trips over that one – how different could things have been had he just made Rin stick around after the race, sat him down and tried to get to the bottom of why he was so upset?  Goro stepped back and held the door open wider. “Come on in, then,” he invited.

Rin didn’t move, at first, tense and on edge as though he was resisting the fight-or-flight impulse – but finally he sucked his lower lip between his teeth, slipped out of his shoes, and stepped inside.  “This way.  Sorry about the bat,” Goro said, kicking it against the wall as he led Rin down the hall.  “Some of my customers have anger issues, even though I’ve never dropped a pizza in my life, thank you very much.  Don’t ask how they keep finding me, I haven’t figured that one out yet.  Although there was this one guy, a few years ago, with biceps bigger than my head, and when I opened the door my life flashed before my eyes – turned out my wallet had fallen out of my pocket in his driveway and he’d just come to return it.  Don’t judge a book by its cover, eh?”  He was rambling, but the nonsensical small talk seemed to be calming Rin down a bit.  He didn’t still look like he was going to leap out of his skin if Goro shouted ‘Boo!’ at him, at least.  “And then this foreign university student showed up once – _Becky_ … but you’re not old enough for me to tell you about Becky,” he added, backing away from the edge of a rapturous haze which could easily consume him for the remainder of the night.

They settled at the table, where Goro’s phone was making quite a racket; he quickly grabbed the device and turned the sound off.  “Never mind that,” he said, folding his legs beneath him comfortably.

“If you’re busy, I can come back….” Rin trailed off.

“Don’t worry about it,” Goro said.  “Now I have an excuse not to go out and help my friend find a date.  The guy wouldn’t know how to treat a woman if she came with a manual.”  He leaned back on his hands.  “So what’s up?”

Rin bit his lip, which _had_ to hurt, and didn’t say a word.  Something had him really spooked, Goro thought, watching Rin shrug out of his jacket and wad it up in his lap.  He’d never known him to be so quiet and subdued – admittedly, he had really only known Rin for less than three months, but the kid was always bright and talkative and bouncing around like a beam of light.  He had reminded Goro a lot of himself at that age, actually, grand Olympic dreams and all.  And real life had kicked Goro’s ass too, in the form of the minivan that T-boned his motorbike at 90 kph.  His survival was a miracle in itself, and he’d amazingly avoided paralysis, but his competitive swimming career was over.  He moved back to his hometown after completing the most intensive phase of physical therapy, picked up odd jobs here and there while continuing to recover, wound up applying for the assistant coaching position at Iwatobi Swim Club, and the rest was history.  He didn’t have any regrets.  Going with the flow and seeing where life took him had worked out pretty well so far – Goro wasn’t the sort of guy to dwell on the past.  He supposed that was where the two of them differed.

“I wanted to ask – hypothetically,” Rin began.  A piercing alarm bell kicked up in the back of Goro’s mind.  In his experience, the only times a kid used the word ‘hypothetically’ was if they were planning to do something stupid, or if they’d _already_ done something stupid.  Hopefully this was the former, because it was way too late for him to handle a crisis.  But now he was curious – did Rin _know_ he would cause Goro to treat everything that came out of his mouth as gospel truth, or was he just giving himself an out in case this conversation didn’t go the way he wanted it to?  He was a smart kid, and obviously choosing his words carefully.

“Okay,” Goro prompted when Rin didn’t continue, “hypothetically….”

“Yeah.” One of Rin’s fingernails buzzed down the zipper of his jacket.  In the weak light outside, he’d seemed pale and washed-out, and now the brighter lamp overhead made him look downright ill.  There were dark purple shadows beneath his eyes.  He licked his lips, wrapped bare arms around his jacket, tilted his head so his hair fell forward to hide his face.  Something squirmed in the pit of Goro’s stomach – all of this strange, frightened behavior was so _wrong_ , coming from Rin, and he was starting to think the usual teenage dumbassery wasn’t at play here.  “What would you have done,” Rin said, so softly that the words nearly disappeared into the low hum of the fan, “a couple of years ago, if someone from the swim club came to you and told you they were being… hurt?”

Oh, Goro thought.  That unpleasant twist in his gut erupted into full-blown nausea.  Oh, fuck.  The skin on the back of his neck prickled.  He sat up straight, propped his elbows on the table, and managed to keep his voice calm when he replied, “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific, kid.”  And, as much as he didn’t want to – one misstep and Rin would seal up like a clam – he said, “Define ‘hurt’.”

Rin swallowed.  His mouth worked for a moment before he could get the next word out.

“Touched.”

Oh, fuck.

Questions exploded in Goro’s head like kernels of popcorn.  He bit them back furiously, folding his fingers together and squeezing until his knuckles ached.  Rin did not need the Spanish Inquisition right now.  What Rin needed – and what Goro, first-rate swimming coach and (according to the online reviews) third-rate pizza delivery boy, was not qualified to give – was probably some kind of therapy.  Maybe it was a bit presumptuous of him to assume, but the kid wouldn’t be so skittish if this was genuinely a ‘so I have this friend…’ sort of thing.  Oh, fuck, he thought again, because it was the only phrase that summed up the panic whirling around in his skull.  Fuck, fuck, shit, dammit, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Rin shifted, curling himself tighter around his jacket, and finally looked straight at Goro through a veil of hair.  It was a weird color, that hair – some brilliant magenta shade that didn’t seem like it should exist in nature.  “What would you have done,” he repeated, more loudly this time, red eyes steady and piercing, “if that had happened?”

“Made good use of the baseball bat in the hall, for starters,” Goro muttered, without really thinking about it.  _Nobody_ fucked with his brats.  Sure, he didn’t actually have any children of his own, but most of the club swimmers who’d stuck around for a while were close enough.  There’d been a time, in his teens, when he’d declared to anyone who would listen that he hated kids.  After a few months of spending most of his time around children, teaching them to swim, he wondered how he ever could have believed that.  He _loved_ kids – snotty noses and shrill voices and wet, sticky hands and all.  He just also loved handing them back to their parents at the end of the day.  Realizing abruptly that his response had been rather insensitive (and perhaps sounded a bit like he wasn’t taking this seriously), Goro said, “Hold on, let me think about it for a minute, all right?”

Nodding, Rin scrunched back up, running the jacket zipper between his fingers.  Height and muscle aside, he looked very small and very young right now – and imagining him smaller and younger and being _touched_ sent a spasm of fury rippling down the knobbles of Goro’s spine.  He wanted to punch something.

What would he have done?

Less than a year into his assistant coaching job, a little girl named Huan had immigrated to Japan with her mother and joined the Iwatobi Swim Club.  He could still picture her quite clearly – dark hair and dark eyes and dark bruises on her skin, bruises she’d tried to hide beneath her towel and the refractory glimmer of the water.  She was always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave.  Everyone had known something was up.  Her Japanese was shaky, so the kids didn’t bother keeping their voices down when they speculated about what went on when she was home, but he’d put a stop to the gossip pretty quickly.  The regular coach had been the one to finally pull Huan into the office and ask the tough questions.

All Huan would say was that it was her fault, she deserved it, she was always making her mother angry.  After the club let out for the day, they called the police.  Goro had mentally prepared himself for the fallout, anticipating a court battle at the very least, but Huan’s mother chose to send her daughter back to China instead, and it was over practically before it started.  Huan wrote them a letter a couple of months later, telling them how she liked living with her grandparents and had found a new swimming club and that nobody made fun of her accent here.  The coach took it with her when she retired and handed the position over to Goro.

Now, Goro set his chin on his hands and studied the top of Rin’s bent head, trying to recall if there were any signs.  It had been painfully clear what was happening to Huan, because her mother’s hands left deep blue marks all over her arms and legs, but a child who was being sexually abused… he added one more mental ‘oh, fuck’ just for emphasis.  He didn’t know _anything_ about that.  He knew Rin had been too smart for his own good, and possibly a tad too manipulative for his own good as well.  He knew Rin came to Iwatobi in search of a relay team and wound up with the best group of friends he could’ve asked for.  He knew Rin wasn’t brimming with natural talent but was willing to train his butt off to reach his goals, which Goro understood and supported because a good work ethic would take him further than any amount of talent.  And… that was pretty much it.  He’d never seemed too unhappy or scared that Goro could remember.  Hell, his most vivid memory of the kid was the time Rin had accidentally called him ‘Mom’.  It was during one of those lulls, when he’d finally gotten the whole lot of brats to shut up and work on their drills until the only sound was that of skin slapping against water, so _everyone_ had heard, and the silence was immediately shattered by laughter.  Crimson-faced, Rin sunk into the water and threw Goro a despondent, tear-filled look.  Goro’s first and foremost club rule was _there’s no crying in swimming_ , but, well, if he could spare a sensitive kid’s feelings….  “Hey!” he’d bellowed, planting his hands on his hips.  “Don’t laugh!  As long as you’re in _my_ pool, I am your mother, your father, _and_ your fat, hairy aunt who likes to pinch your cheeks and talk about how big you’ve gotten, understood?”

“I don’t have an aunt like that,” said one of the girls.

“Well, you do now,” he informed her.

“ _I_ have an aunt like that,” another girl said, wrinkling her freckled nose.  “She always puts olives and cheese on sardines for lunch when I visit.”

“ _Eeeewwwww_!” the kids chorused.  They had busied themselves badgering the girl for more tales of her aunt’s revolting culinary concoctions, Rin was quickly forgotten, and Goro sauntered off to yell at two boys roughhousing by the pool, feeling like he’d done his good deed for the day.

If Rin had been one of his regulars, maybe Goro would’ve noticed something wasn’t right.  The children who showed up practically every day for years, like Haruka and Makoto, were so familiar to him back then that he could have sniffed out trouble the moment they set foot in the club.  He hadn’t known Rin long enough to really _know_ him.  Things he’d written off as simple quirks might not have been so benign.

Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.  The only thing he could be sure of was that Rin had had implied he was sexually abused at some point.  He didn’t know precisely when – Rin seemed to be implying that this had happened when he was younger, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be ongoing – nor did he know who the perpetrator was.  The boy’s life beyond the walls of the swim club was a total mystery to him.  He couldn’t even speculate.  That left one option: Rin was asking what Goro would have done several years ago, so he started with the truth. “I don’t know.”

Rin lifted his head.  The set of his mouth suggested he intended to misinterpret that as ‘ _I don’t care enough to work it out_ ’, so Goro hastened to explain.  “We’re talking four, four and a half years ago, right?  It’s been a while.  I guess I know what I _should_ have done, but if you want an honest answer… well, it might help if you were a little more honest with me, first.”

That hadn’t come out quite the way he’d meant it to, but, for better or for worse, it was out.  He leaned over to turn the fan down a notch, mindful of Rin’s lack of sleeves, and waited.  Rin was still toying with the zipper.  Something about the way he curled himself around his bundled-up jacket pulled at Goro’s brain, but he couldn’t conjure up the right metaphor for it.

Finally, just when Goro began to think he’d really bunged this up good, Rin released a long, shuddering breath.  “You can’t tell _anyone_ ,” he said quietly, fisting his hands in his jacket.

Goro shook his head.  “I don’t think I can promise you that, kid.”

Rin’s expression darkened into one infinitely more familiar than the haunted look he’d been wearing since Goro opened the door.  “Why not?” he demanded.

Deciding he might as well entirely drop the pretense that any of this was hypothetical, Goro said, “Look.  Rin.  I understand where you’re coming from, but if this is something that’s still going on… I’m gonna feel obligated to report it.  You’re a kid.  I can’t just let you go back to a situation where you could be hurt.”

Rin glowered down at the table, but, after a long moment, he said, “It’s not.  Going on anymore, I mean.  It hasn’t been for years.”  He muttered something in English that Goro couldn’t translate, then roughly raked his hands through his hair, making it fluff out at strange angles.  “Dammit, I don’t even know why I’m doing this – it was ages ago.  I barely thought about it anymore.  But my roommate was watching some stupid talk show a couple of days ago and I could hear it and it screwed me up and now I can’t –  I just want to be _normal_!” He broke off suddenly, digging his fingers back into his jacket, untangling a sleeve and tucking it up beneath his chin.  When he spoke again, his voice was low and controlled.  “I need to know what you would have done.  That’s all.  Consider it closure.”

Closure, huh, Goro thought.  He could understand that.  Sooner or later there came a time when everyone had to crack open the closet door and dust off a few skeletons.  He’d done it fairly recently, after four of his friends had gotten married all within a year and he spent way too much time drinking and refusing to think about what was driving him to drink.  But eventually he’d confronted his demons – he and Miyako been young and stupid and rushed into an engagement neither of them really wanted.  She was just the one to recognize the futility first, and she’d had the strength to break it off while he was hanging on for dear life.  No, he hadn’t gotten to marry ‘the girl of his dreams’, but now she had the house full of rugrats she’d always desired and he was enjoying his extended bachelorhood, so it all worked out in the end.  He would’ve made a crappy father anyway.

“I’ll do what I can, okay?” Goro said gently.  “But right now, all I know is that the very first thing I would’ve asked is if you could tell me what’s happening.”

Rin hunched his shoulders, teeth sunk into his lip again.  For the first time, Goro let himself wonder why Rin had come to him, of all people – there had to be someone else, someone he was closer to with whom he’d be more comfortable discussing this.  Goro had been his swim coach for two months when he was twelve.  He felt extremely inadequate in this situation.  If Rin had never told anyone about this before (and Goro suspected he had not), he would need support from someone who actually knew what the hell they were talking about and was less likely to say something stupid and scar him for life.

“My mom had this boyfriend,” Rin blurted.  His fingertips skittered down the zipper.  “She started dating him when I was in fifth grade.  I _hated_ him at first – not because he was a scumbag, I didn’t know that yet, but I thought she was trying to replace my dad.  He didn’t really care that I wanted him to jump off a bridge, he was just nice to me, and when he and my mom got more serious and he was around all the time, he _kept_ being nice to me, and I guess he kind of… wore me down.  He paid more attention to me than my mom did sometimes – it wasn’t her fault, she had to work – and she was okay with him spending time with me because she thought it was good for me to have a ‘father-figure’ or some sappy crap like that.” He squeezed his jacket against his chest, pressed his face into it for a moment.  There were goosebumps all along his arms.  “He was nice to me,” he repeated, muffled.  “We didn’t have a lot of money when I was younger, so I didn’t do much besides swimming.  He used to take me places and buy me stuff and… I don’t know, he treated me like I was actually his kid.  I barely even remembered my dad by then.  He didn’t do the same for my sister and I didn’t notice for a long time because he made me feel _special_.

“There’s actually a word for it, I just found out the other day – it’s called _grooming_.” Rin’s eyes flickered up to Goro’s, as if to confirm he was listening, then darted back to the gleaming teeth of his zipper.  “I was so fucking _stupid_ , I really thought – anyway, he and my mom kept going out.  Gou and I were starting to think they were going to get married.  He was always doing weird shit like hugging me a lot, even when I didn’t want him to, but I still thought it was normal.  I was kind of a dumb kid.  And then… then I turned eleven and everything got totally fucked up.”

He had to pause there, as his voice had wobbled and nearly cracked on the last word.  Goro opened his mouth to offer him a glass of water or something, but before he could, Rin plowed on, talking faster.  “I mean that literally.  On my birthday, after everyone had gone to bed, he came to my room and woke me up and said he had another present for me, but I had to keep it a secret.  You’d think that would be a huge fucking red flag, but like I said, I was a dumb kid.” He swallowed with visible effort.  “I don’t… fuck, you know where this is going.  I was scared and confused and I _still_ didn’t realize he shouldn’t be doing that sort of stuff to me, but I figured, after my birthday was over, I could forget about it, right?” Rin laughed, a harsh, scraping sound that made Goro think of nails on a chalkboard.  “Yeah, right.  Creepy bastard wasn’t happy with just _once_.  He and my mom worked totally different hours and he practically lived with us at that point, so he was usually home when she wasn’t.  My old swim club ended earlier than Iwatobi did, so I’d have to go home while my sister was still at her dance class, and I’d just want to throw up the whole way because I knew he’d be there.  He would always tell me that I was special and that’s why we could do this, just as long as I was good and kept it a secret.  At one point I even convinced myself that I was supposed to like it and there was something wrong with me because I didn’t.”

God, Goro thought, nauseated.  He wished he could tell Rin to stop, he didn’t want to hear anymore, but he’d asked for the details.  He _needed_ the details so he could answer Rin’s question… and also so he knew exactly how drawn-out and painful to make that man’s death if he ever ran into him.  And Rin just kept talking, like he couldn’t stop now that he’d started.  “ _Finally_ , I got it through my thick head that what he was doing wasn’t normal.  The next time he got me alone, I told him I was going to tell my mom if he didn’t stop.  He told me he’d hurt her and Gou if I breathed a word.”  Rin nuzzled his face into his jacket again.  He was bent almost double by now.  “It wasn’t much of a choice.  My mom _loved_ that guy – she was so freaking happy when he was around that I couldn’t have told her even if I wasn’t afraid to, and Gou was just a kid.  I didn’t know anything back then.  I was an idiot, I really thought I was protecting them.

“So that shit went on for months.  He got braver – started ‘punishing’ me for a couple of things I couldn’t help.  He didn’t hit me, but I used to wish he’d do that instead.  I could’ve handled being hit.  My mom wanted me to wait until I was older before I went away to school, but I wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, so I applied to a bunch of places in sixth grade.  It was kind of like a light at the end of the tunnel, I guess.  I was still miserable.  I had nightmares and I was sick all the time and sometimes during school I’d hide in the bathroom and just bawl like a baby because I felt so _disgusting_.  Everyone was starting to think I was weird, but Sousuke – that was this kid I was friends with – told them to back off and that helped a little bit.  He didn’t ask what was wrong.  Probably knew I wouldn’t tell him.” Worrying his lower lip between his teeth, Rin was quiet for a minute before saying, “My sister still thought they’d get married.  I was going to kill myself if that happened.  I wrote this stupid letter to my mom and hid it… dunno if I could’ve actually gone through with it, but I had the pills and everything.

“But then in January I transferred to Iwatobi, and the only way I could do that was to live with my grandmother during the week.  I felt a lot better from basically the moment I got on the train – it was safer at her house, I could sleep without being afraid I’d wake up during the night and he’d be sitting on the end of my bed and jerking off.” He snorted.  “Perv.  And I had stuff to do while I was at Iwatobi, so I didn’t think about it so much… but I still had to go home on the weekends.”  Rin picked his head up just enough to catch Goro’s eye.  “I used to get these horrible stomachaches around the end of the week.  I don’t know if you remember that….”

He did, with a sudden, stunning clarity that made him wonder how he could have ever forgotten to begin with.  He wasn’t clear on the number of times Rin had crept up to him, arms wrapped around his stomach, mumbling that he didn’t feel good and could he sit down in the locker room for a few minutes. The kid usually looked pretty green and nothing ruined a swim practice faster than somebody puking in the pool, so he’d always said yes.  And today he couldn’t even recall if anything had seemed off to him – Rin wasn’t one of those kids who felt ‘sick’ when they were told to practice their worst stroke and then magically recovered as soon as it was time to move on, and he normally was back in the pool within the agreed-upon few minutes, if memory served.  Hindsight, Goro thought bitterly.  With it all laid out in front of him like that, it was so _obvious_ something had been up.

“Yeah,” he said.  His voice sounded rough to his own ears.  “I remember.”

Rin shrugged, clenching his hands in his jacket yet again.  It took almost a solid minute of silence before Goro realized no more was forthcoming, and a further thirty seconds for him to figure out that probably would’ve been the end of the story had Rin really been telling it as a child.  But it wasn’t the end _now_ , so he fished for the first sensible question that came to mind – “Are he and your mom still together?”

“No.”

“What about…” There’d been a question brewing in Goro’s brain practically since Rin had started his story, and he hated to have to ask it, afraid of what the answer might be.  “Your sister?”

Wincing, Rin shook his head harshly and hugged his jacket.  “No.  I – I don’t _think_ so.  He never paid much attention to her.  He said he’d leave her alone if I ‘behaved’ myself.  A couple of weeks before I went to Australia, I asked her if he’d ever done anything weird to her – I’m not sure she knew what I meant, but she said when my mom and I weren’t around he pretty much pretended she didn’t exist.  Guess his sick fetish didn’t extend to little girls.  I made her promise to tell me if he started creeping her out, but she never said anything.  And about a month after I left, my mom called and I found out they’d broken up – he got this job in another city and she didn’t want to leave hers to come with and he decided to end it.  Maybe he got bored once I wasn’t around anymore.  Haven’t heard from him since.”

Goro was reasonably more satisfied with _that_ ending, even if the possibility of that creep still running amuck somewhere and messing around with kids didn’t sit well with him.  “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me his name.”

Rin shook his head again.  There was blood on his hands where he’d scraped them open on his zipper; he regarded the damage with vague confusion and stuck the tip of his index finger into his mouth.  “Do you believe it?” he mumbled around his finger.

“Well, yeah,” Goro said, surprised he’d even ask.  “Hell, the only unbelievable part of that story is your mom not noticing, and _my_ mother had no idea about the ridiculous amounts of pot I smoked right under her nose, so I know how oblivious parents can get.”  How much easier would this have been if Rin had simply wanted his opinion on weed… Goro could’ve told him not to buy a pile of Hawaiian shirts while stoned no matter _how_ good he thought they’d look on him, then sent him on his merry way.  Instead, Rin spilled his guts about being molested by his mom’s boyfriend.  Goro’s life experience did not extend that far.  “Did you ever tell anyone else about this?”

Rin hesitated a fraction of a second too long, gaze sliding away, before saying, “No.”

“Okay.” Assuming that whether or not he had wasn’t especially relevant, Goro rubbed a hand over his mouth, two nights’ worth of stubble chafing his skin, and mulled everything over. 

As hard as he tried, he couldn’t come up with a substantial response.  That baseball bat still sounded real tempting.  _Think_ , he told himself.  If Rin had trusted him enough to tell him about the abuse, the _least_ Goro could do in return was answer his question.  Rin was all huddled up and staring at the tabletop, which gave Goro an opportunity to shut his eyes and try to imagine a little twelve-year-old Rin sitting in the swim club’s office and repeating that story.  He doubted he would’ve been as calm four years ago as he was now.  He thought of Huan and the purple contusions disappearing beneath her uniform’s collar, _I do everything wrong so she has to punish me_ , did not let himself fantasize about murdering the guy who’d caused all this, and said, “Honestly, kid, I would’ve called the police.”  He sighed and turned the fan off entirely – the nighttime air was doing a better job of cooling down the room and Rin had yet to put his jacket back on.  “I can’t tell you exactly what would’ve happened after that, because I’m not sure what they would’ve done, but I assume you would have had to stay with your grandma instead of going home.  The guy would probably be arrested, because you can’t _do_ that shit to kids – and I think your mom and sister would be okay.” Rin didn’t seem as reassured by that as Goro hoped he’d be.  “I don’t know what you really want from me here.  I could’ve helped you if you’d said something.”

Rin’s shoulders tensed.  His expression shuttered.  That had clearly been the wrong thing to say, as right as it had sounded in Goro’s head.  _Shit_ , he’d known he would screw this up.  “Hey,” he began uneasily, “I didn’t mean –”

He only caught a few of the words Rin muttered – “…fucking _knew it_ …” – but the boy didn’t duck his head soon enough for Goro to miss the tears welling in his eyes.

Oh, fuck.

He might’ve fairly earned the moniker ‘Goro the Demon’ during his coaching days, but Goro didn’t _try_ to make kids cry.  First of all, that was kind of a dick move, and second, there were better ways of getting the brats to cooperate.  On the rare occasions someone broke the ‘no crying in swimming’ rule, he sent the offender to his assistant coach.  She was a woman, she could hug unhappy kids without inciting angry parent phone calls.  So he had no idea what to do, with Rin sitting across the table and on the verge of a meltdown, still cuddling his jacket like – like it was a stuffed animal, or a pillow, or something else that helped him feel safer.  Feeling incredibly stupid for not having made the connection earlier, Goro said, “You want a blanket?”

Rin glanced up, brows knit.  Goro nodded at his bare arms.  “Then you could put your jacket back on.  I’m getting cold just looking at you.”

The tears spilled over.  Horrified, Goro frantically cast around for something comforting to say and couldn’t think of anything because he wasn’t actually sure what Rin was crying about.  He wound up gaping like a suffocating fish while Rin scrubbed his palm over his cheeks, said, “Sorry, I…” then trailed off, sniffling.

“It’s all right.” Goro banged his knees against the table when he clambered to his feet.  Rin kindly did not comment on this – though Goro half-expected him to, since Rin had been a smart-mouthed pain in the ass and wouldn’t have hesitated to make a remark a few years ago.  He almost wished he’d gone out with his buddies as soon as he’d gotten home instead of dawdling around for twenty minutes.  He just _didn’t know_ how to deal with this.  The only thing he could do was root around in the hall closet and detangle a blanket from the spare futon, briefly consider punching the wall to release some of the messier emotions bubbling in his belly, decide he’d do that later, and head back.

Rin didn’t look at him when he returned; he was, however, wearing his jacket, and seemed to have gotten himself under control.  Goro left the folded blanket on the table next to Rin, sat down, and at last gave into the temptation to ask, “Weird question, but why me?"

Rin’s fingers flexed around the edge of the table.  He was watching the blanket through his hair as though it might jump up and do a trick.  Were the circumstances less troubling, it would’ve been funny how obviously he wanted that blanket. “I couldn’t tell my mom, or Gou….  My teacher at Sano already didn’t like me much, since I’d spent the entire year either acting like a nervous wreck or driving him crazy.”  For just a moment, the corner of his lips twitched in the faintest of smirks.  He finally reached out, took the blanket, and crumpled it up in his lap.  It was bigger and bulkier than his jacket and he could curl around it without hunching over like a crone.  It also didn’t have any metal bits he could hurt himself with (though, to be fair, he didn’t seem to have _intentionally_ torn up his fingers).  “I was a horrible kid.  And I wasn’t too familiar with the teacher at Iwatobi, and there wasn’t anyone else.”

“I saw you even less than your teacher did,” Goro pointed out.

Shrugging, Rin said, “Sometimes it’s easier with people who don’t know you well enough to be disappointed in you.  And I thought… you’d probably believe me.” He settled his chin atop the blanket.  “But then I also thought I’d make everything worse if I told.  At least I was right about _something_.”

Goro was starting to get some idea of what this was really all about.  There were a lot of things bothering him – the constant self-deprecation littering Rin’s story, to start with, closely followed by his fixation with making sure he was believed – but those could wait.  “Listen,” he said, knocking his knuckles against the table until he knew he had Rin’s attention.  “What I said earlier, it came out wrong.  I _wish_ you’d told me, but I get why you didn’t want to say anything.  I don’t know if I would’ve either.  And yeah, ideally, that guy would’ve been put away forever, but sometimes things don’t work out that well.  You didn’t do _anything_ wrong, okay?” He ran his fingers through his hair, grimaced – it really needed a wash – and sighed.  “I wish I’d realized.  I might’ve just been the two-hour-a-day swim coach, but I was supposed to look out for you brats, and I guess I did a crap job of that.”

“I was good at faking being normal,” Rin said.  He looked so terribly tired.  “Especially by that time.”

That wasn’t really an excuse for Goro’s poor observational skills.  He’d failed the kid sitting before him and he knew it.  Propping his head up on his fist again, he said, “So what do you want me to do?”

“Huh?” Rin said blankly.

Goro spread his hands in a helpless gesture.  “I deliver pizzas.  I’m good at telling kids to quit fooling around and get their asses in the water.  I can drive a boat.  I _don’t_ know what to do here – you’re gonna have to give me a hand.  What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“Aside from that.”

Rin twisted the corner of the blanket around his fingers until his knuckles turned white, then repeated, more forcefully, “ _Don’t tell anyone._ ”

“I won’t,” Goro promised.  Despite his personal feelings on the matter, Rin was hardly a child anymore, and since his abuser had long since skipped town, it might be best to not press the issue.  But… “Just an opinion here, and feel free to ignore me – maybe you should try telling your mom.”

All at once, Rin closed up again, clutching the blanket to his chest as if it was a shield.  This whole conversation was a fricking minefield, Goro thought, and yet he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed.  “No,” Rin said.

“I –”

“I _can’t_.  She was over the goddamn moon for that guy.  She’d be devastated… if she didn’t think I was making it up or something.” Rin’s mouth twisted.  “She didn’t even fucking _notice_ anyway –”

Whoops.  Goro delicately edged around that time-bomb of lingering resentment and said, “All right, it was only a suggestion, thought I’d throw it out there.  There are loads of people way more qualified to help you than I am.”

“I don’t want help.  I don’t _need_ help.  I did fine the past couple of years.”

Judging by the bits and bobs Goro picked up from the Iwatobi kids, Rin had already been far from ‘fine’, and apparently they only knew some of the reason for his behavior.  “Sure, sure, but you’re, what, sixteen?  You don’t have to carry this around all by yourself.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Rin mumbled into the blanket.

“Yeah,” Goro said, rubbing the back of his neck, “and I don’t know if you really trust me that much or if I’m a last resort, but I’m glad you did.  That took a lot of guts.”

What little he could see of Rin’s face turned red.  “I just wanted to know what you would have done if I’d told you back then.”

“Still.  It was pretty brave.”

Rin scoffed, but if he could’ve hidden beneath the blanket without giving up his dignity, he probably would have done it.  He was almost the same shade as his hair.  Didn’t anyone ever praise this kid?  Deprived of that option, he weaved the silky edging between his fingers and stared at the floor instead until his face returned to its normal color.  

Neither of them spoke for a while, lost in their own thoughts, but suddenly Rin straightened up and began refolding the blanket.  “I should go,” he said, standing.  “I need to get the train back to school.”

Goro glanced at the clock.  Not even an hour had passed since his doorbell rang, and yet it felt like he’d aged a decade.  He scrambled to his feet and hurried to catch up with Rin, who clearly wanted to escape as quickly as possible now that he’d done what he came here to do.  “All right.  Do… wait, wait, hold on a second.” He put his hand on the door while Rin was shoving his feet back into his shoes, gave the kid a suspicious look, and said, “How did you know where I live?”

“Got the address from Makoto.  He never asks too many questions.”

“Ah.” The quest to discover how his customers kept finding his house would continue, then.  He stepped out onto the porch and shivered slightly as the cool early-fall air bit at his skin.  “Want a ride to the station?  You could hop on the back of the Pizzamobile.”

Rin followed his gaze to the humble little vehicle.  His face spasmed.  “I would rather amputate my own legs with a rusted potato peeler,” he said in the most deadpan tone possible.

Goro laughed – from relief more than amusement, because Rin being a snarky little shit instead of withdrawn and nervous was a drastic improvement.  “Aw, come on.” He gave the Pizzamobile a fond look.  “It’s cool.  Women line up around the block to take a ride on this thing.”

“I’ll pass.”  Rin crammed his hands into his pockets and started towards the street.

“Hey,” Goro said.  Rin paused at the curb.  “Are you gonna be okay?”

“…yeah,” Rin said, after a long minute of nothing but crickets and waves and the breeze rustling through the trees.  “I have to be.”

No, you don’t, Goro thought.  You don’t _have_ to be okay.  You’re allowed to break down and cry and hate the world for letting that happen to you.  You’re allowed to lean on other people for support and ask for help.  You’re allowed to be hurt.  Pretending nothing’s wrong never did anyone any favors.

Out loud, he said, “All right, well, you know where to find me if you want to talk or something.  Night, kid.”

“Night,” Rin mumbled, and Goro watched him slouch away, collar upturned, head bent against the wind.  Maybe he looked a little less downtrodden than he had earlier.  Maybe he didn’t.  It was impossible to tell in the dark.  Goro closed the door once he was out of sight, then thumped his forehead against the wood and closed his eyes.

“Shit.”

He was soon summoned back to the table by the insistent buzzing of his phone; it had vibrated itself right over the edge and was rattling around on the floor.  Goro picked it up, glanced at the display, and flipped it open.  “Yo.”

“Yo yourself, no-show,” Hideki shouted over the background roar of a crowded bar.  He didn’t sound nearly as drunk as Goro expected him to be this close to midnight.  “You crash the Pizzamobile or what?”

“Nah.  Had some unexpected company.”

“Sucks for you.  Aya here has a cute friend….”

At the moment, there was actually nothing Goro cared about less than Aya’s cute friend.  Then his gaze was drawn to the other side of the table, where the blanket had been left, neatly folded, its edges crinkled, and suddenly the lure of cheap alcohol was too strong to resist.  “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Sure it’s not too late for you, old man?”

“Aw, shut up.” Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Goro grabbed his coat from the hall and juggled his phone as he threaded his arms through the sleeves.  “I just need a drink like you wouldn’t fucking believe.”

**Author's Note:**

> ... /hides 
> 
> (I promise the next thing I write won't suck)


End file.
